Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A Dilemma for Darwinists

The new crop of atheist Darwinists argue that the Resurrection of Christ is impossible because there are so many observations of people dying who, in fact, stay dead. But at the same time, they claim it is possible (indeed, for them, necessary) that life came from non-life despite the equally impressive number of observations of living things generated always and only from other living things.

Despite just as much evidence against one as the other, they accept the latter and reject the former. Why? Because it fits their worldview. But somehow, I suspect, they will continue to claim they are more rational than their religious peers.

I am considering that your post must be the result of either of two possible conditions: First, that you have contracted Alzheimers; or, second, that you have a sophisticated philosophical response to my post that you have couched in an illustration.

I am thinking it must be the latter, but I'm afraid you're going to have to explain it for those of us who don't understand your devious sense of humor.

Abiogenesis has some very good proof behind it. Such as the research done and covered below.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjOqWkV1_tk

Also, man rising from the dead has the problems of what occurs after death - enzyme breakdown, cell decay due to fermentation and decomposition (anaerobic), etc. I must go with Mr. Sagan on this.

"In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?" [Carl Sagan, Cosmos, page 257]

God does not appear to suspend the laws he puts forth if he exists, and we have no reason to believe the contrary. Why then, should we state that it is so?

The dead coming back to life is a matter of the "behavior" (in a chemical sense) of living things.

The origin of life is a matter of the "behavior" of non-living matter.

If one doesn't understand this simple truth, one isn't really going to make much sense in one's protestations.

And in anticipation of the more usual reply, I challenge Martin (or anyone else reading this) to list a sampling (say, 5-20) of the peer-reviewed studies that have attempted to create life as we know if from scratch. Make sure that these studies include good descriptions of the assays that were used to measure "life".

The dead coming back to life is a matter of the "behavior" (in a chemical sense) of living things.

This seems like an ultra-strange statement--not at all like what I thought that Martin was saying. Corpses are in the non-living category, just like chemicals. And I am guessing that Martin wasn't asserting some sort of chemical self-revivification by corpses.

Transplant patients receive parts from corpses and they are incorporated into their body to function properly. That is what Martin is stating though in the Miracle of the Resurrection. Those chemicals were brought to life after dying once. Except for the bible, no document claims this insanity for Jesus and the other myths are known as such, myths.

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a Virgin Mary, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." ~Thomas Jefferson~

Just as the virgin birth will come to a close, so will the resurrection.

> Again, I almost want to request that people leave science to those who actually look at data...

Why not take it a step or two further? Let's leave any thinking of any sort to people who can explain what rationality is, where it comes from, and why it ought to be something that stands over us and regarded as authoritative.

Those who believe in God may maintain that rationality is one of the aspects of His personality, and that as beings created in His image, it is natural to grasp it in our limited human sense and use it for our purposes as well as His. If God invented rationality, then it can indeed stand higher than man himself.

But those who view the universe in purely materialistic terms have to explain how anything, such as morals, reason or logic, can transcend us, or have any meaning whatsoever apart from what we arbitrarily assign it. If we created these things, are they not less than we are? That's the wrong direction, isn't it? How can the creation be greater than the creator?

And do they not exist only in the minds of those individual humans that happen to perceive them? And thus, are they only mere chemical and electrical blips running through the gelatinous mass of protoplasm we call brains?

And since we cannot observe a brain and distinguish those chemicals and electrical impulses which separate higher thoughts from baser instincts, can we ever state authoritatively that they exist at all?

Can anyone explain why the bubbles and currents flowing in Isaac's or Art's brain ought to be considered superior to those flowing in Martin's, or TomH's, or mine? From a material standpoint, is one bubble better than another?

And where did the idea of "better" come from?

I like Doug Wilson's analogy: in the materialist world, we have no reason to think that our debates are actually debates in the sense that our conceits misinform us. It's like shaking up a can of Coke and placing it on one end of the podium, and shaking up a can of Dr. Pepper and placing it on the other end; now pull the tabs and may the best bubbles win.